


Feels Like Forgiveness

by alloftheorangejuice



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dean Winchester - Freeform, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Forgiveness, Maybe Some Sexy Times Maybe Not, strong female lead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 12:21:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5048347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alloftheorangejuice/pseuds/alloftheorangejuice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a hunt gone wrong, and you'd never been able to shake it off. Where to go for forgiveness? Perhaps it'd been right in front of you all along...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feels Like Forgiveness

                You barged through the door to the bunker, arms full of tomes thick enough to kill a—well, a _human_. When you saw no one was down at the map table to help, you hopped to one side of the stairs and then swung your leg to close the door behind you. Steadily you tracked down into the bunker and over to the table to put down the books with an _umph_.

                “Damn, girl. You not satisfied with the size of my library?” came a mocking voice from your right.

                You turned to find Dean leaning against the door frame with a brown bottle in his hands, giving you a goofy, smoldering smirk.

                “Hah. Get a hold of yourself, Winchester,” you said, half wondering if he saw you struggle down the steps and half quite aware of the innuendo he just made.

                “How was the library, _Sam_?” Dean asked, walking across the bunker floor to sink into the dusty old couch.

                “It was good,” you said, ignoring the name-switch. You dropped your backpack to the floor with a thud that echoed through the rooms.

                “Damn.”

                “Yeah.”

                You pulled the books, one by one, out of the backpack and onto the table next to the first stack. They were heavy. _Massive_ , really. Each one required two hands, but you were happy to find it was almost easy for you. Your cap-sleeved black t-shirt showed off your muscle where you had not long ago been thin and weak. You tried not to wonder if anyone had noticed.

                “No seriously,” Dean said. “What gives, Y/N? We have the world’s greatest library right here. How could you not find what you were looking for?”

                You glance over at Dean to find a strange look on his face. He looks inquisitive. Suitable, of course, since he just asked a question. But there is something underneath it that makes you uneasy because it looks very much like a different kind of question that you don’t want to answer.

                You returned your attention to emptying your bag.

                “I just wanted to get out of the house. Found these and thought they’d be helpful.”

                Dean watched in silence and you organized your new literature. You dusted the spine on two particularly large books _, Vampires and the Effect of Time_ _and Illuminati Saved_. They were embossed with gold lettering in blood red bindings, and looked to be part of a series.

                You swung your bag up onto the table to rummage through it, looking for your headphones and wallet. It was then you realized, to your dismay, that Dean was quiet and looked like a little boy about to ask out a girl to the prom.

                You swallowed the knot in your throat.

                _It hasn’t been enough time_ , you thought. _Not yet._

                But the look on Dean’s face was a ticking time bomb and you really didn’t need the anxiety. You wanted to nip this in the bud before it became something you couldn’t deal with.

                “Well,” you said, turning to Dean with a hand on your hip, “are you going to ask me something?”

                This seemed to have a negative effect on the hunter and he looked flustered and confused. He stared for a long moment before taking a swig of his beer. Winger’s Double IPA.

                “Do it now, or just get out,” you said.

                Dean gave an innocent look before succumbing and showing his surrender.

                “Alright, fine. Y/N…”

                You waited, hand on hip, for him to continue. Your eyes were sharp, ready.

                “Let’s talk about the vampires,” he said.

                “Sure, let’s talk about them,” you said immediately, shocking Dean.

                “Really?”

                “Yeah,” you said, picking up the gold and red tome and walking over to the couch. You dropped it on the cushion. It bounced with a soft thud.

                “Here. Read this. Then we can discuss.”

                “Y/N…”

                “What?”

                “Come on.”

                “What? It’s all about vampires. It’ll make for great discussion.”

                “What, are you… doing your own research on those guys? They’re gone, Y/N. Gone.”

                “They aren’t.”

                “They are,” Dean said, his voice stern like a demanding father. “We ganked those sons-of-a-bitches and we left when their heads were on the floor. They’re gonzo, poof, ex-oh-presto, whatever. Gone, Y/N.”

                “I’m not doing this,” you whispered under your breath and walked back to the map table.

                “Come on, Y/N. Talk to me.”

                You spun around. “Talk to you? Talk to you, Dean? Do I… do I hear an echo in here?”

                “Don’t…”

                “You _never_ talk to me!”

                “That’s different.”

                “Bullshit!”

                “You’re different, Y/N!” Dean said, standing up, beer swinging at his side with his hand gestures. “Something changed you. I mean—look at you! You’re, you’re spending all of your time out of the house, scouring lore about things we know next to everything about. You didn’t have girly-muscle-guns when we took down those vamps. Now look at you! You couldn’t… couldn’t run a 10K when we beheaded those bastards. You weren’t this person. You’re different! And you’re… you’re freaking us out, because I have a feeling, a really strong feeling that you aren’t doing all this for kicks and fitness. You’re freaking us out.”

                “Us?” you said, referencing the younger Winchester.

                “Fine. _Me_.”

                “Is that right?”

                “Yeah,” Dean said, a bit resigned.

                “Wow, how does that feel? I wouldn’t know,” you said, walking back towards Dean.

                “Y/N.”

                “I’ve asked you how many times, Dean? How many times?”

                You walked up until you were inches away from Dean, looking up into his evergreen eyes.

                He gave you nothing more than a look, a guarded look, the kind he gave Sam when he was telling him without saying that he wasn’t going to talk.

                “Yeah,” you said. “That’s what I thought.”

                Dean shook his head.

                “This isn’t fair.”

                “It’s not,” you said.

                “I can’t. I can’t talk about it.”

                “Neither can I. Because what I went through? That’s my hell.”

                Dean’s eyes softened at this. You felt a little bad. Surely what you went through, no matter how painful, was better than enduring the actual, physical hell that Dean had been in, but it didn’t make your pain any less real. Just thinking about that night with the vampires caused a wealth of emotions to rise within you. It made you feel like doing what you’ve been doing when that happened—go for a run. Get out of the house. Go find a tree and see how many pull-ups you could manage until your muscles felt like they were on fire and it took all the focus away from the thoughts in your head.

                What Dean didn’t know is that if he would only speak, if he would just talk to you, if he would just tell you how he felt about what he did to those other people, about the guilt… then maybe you could start to talk about it herself, about how you felt being the one responsible for the ambush—the vampire ambush that took out your best friend.

                Suddenly, Dean was shaking his head.

                “Y/N…”

                You kept your eyes attentive, taking in the freckles that splashed across his nose.

                “I want… I want to make sure you’re alright,” he said.

                You felt a flicker of wings inside your stomach as you listened to him talk.

                “I need to know you’re okay, you know? I need to know you’re not gonna… I don’t know, run yourself into the ground, or turn into a hulk we don’t even recognize, and then start taking revenge on god knows what. I’ve been down that road, you know that. I just want you to, to talk to me, really. Just… talk to me. That’s all I want. Talk to me, please.”

                The sincerity in his voice scared you more than you anticipated. The shine in his green eyes were hypnotic and seemed to pull at a part of you that you didn’t know existed. But you felt the knots in your chest start to loosen just a bit.

 _It was the eyes_ , you thought _. It’s his damn green eyes_.

                You blinked. Bad idea. Now there were tears.

                Dean looked at you, standing inches in front of him with your shoulders back, chin up, hands balled into fists, hair down and slightly a mess, with glassy eyes.

                The bunker was silent.

                “Y/N…”

                “I need you to tell me about your guilt,” you said in an abnormally slow, controlled voice.

                Dean grimaced, shook his head, looked away, and then refocused.

                “I can’t—“ you started, “I can’t deal with, with all of _this_ ,” you said, gesturing toward your heart. “What am I supposed to do with it? I can’t… I can’t get rid of it. I can’t push it down when I need to. I can’t, _hell_ , I can’t physically run away from it. I can’t deal… I can’t—“

                You choked back some tears. Luckily none had fallen yet. So you just stood teary eyed and tried to compose yourself. Dean was awkwardly standing right before you, like he suddenly didn’t know how to approach you, like he forgot that he usually hugged you when you were sad, like he forgot you wouldn’t chop of his hand if he gave a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

                “Dean…”

                And when the silence lasted for more than a long moment, went you realized, with your dropped head, that Dean’s beer was just hanging in his hand limply, when you realized, no, he wasn’t going to talk to you, he wasn’t going to say anything, even if he was the one who asked you to talk about the ambush and how you felt, when you realized he would say nothing, you steeled your bottom lip and turned away.

                But he caught your arm. There was the slight _clunk_ of his beer as he put it on the table and then turned you around to face him.

                Now he had one hand on your bicep, the other hanging at his side.

                Did he always look this awkward?

                His eyes. He looked… _confused_ , like he wasn’t sure if what he was going to say would make you shatter into pieces instantly.

                “Y/N, you’re _strong_ ,” he said with a tilt of his head and a glance to your arm.

                _My arms_ , you thought. You couldn’t help but give a slight chuckle. _Thank you, Dean_.

                “And, I mean that in more ways than one,” he said, holding your eyes.

He brought up his other hand to your other arm, steadying your frame before him.

“And, I’ll tell ya, we’ve only… we’ve only know each other for a few months. But, I see a bit of me in you—“

“Thanks—“

“No. Sorry, no. Not thanks. You don’t want it. You don’t want any of this, Y/N. Trust me. Okay? I see that look in your eyes, that Great Wall of China that flashes in them when we go on hunts, when you pull out your blade. You work out or run. I…” he paused for a moment. He glanced down at his beer. “Listen, you’re stronger than I am. You gotta talk about this so you can heal, or, something like that. That’s where the strength is. It was in those goddamn books Sammy gave me. God. But,  Y/N… I… I… I think that, actually,” he said, his voice turning mocking, “I think this speech should be turned over to Sammy or something, cause—“

“No,” you said, feeling the gentle will of Dean in the heat of his palms on your arms. “No, I need to talk to you, Dean. I need you.”

And immediately you felt the red flush your neck. That hadn’t meant it to come out like that at all. You needed his advice. You needed him to forgive you for what you did. You needed his guidance… right? That was it… his help… right?

But this seemed to flip a switch in the hunter and his look of confusion was immediately gone. His jaw was straightened, his eyes were narrowed, and he looked at you like he just realized who you were.

                Something decisive flickered in his eyes.

                He moved his hands to grab under your shoulders, picked you up, and swung you around to push you against the wall.

                You wheezed. Suddenly, your breath was gone. You were frozen, but your chest was pounding.

                _This was…_

He put a hand to either side of your head against the wall and leaned in close.

“This is how it was, wasn’t it?” he rasped.

You squinted your eyes in fear and shook your head, but the answer was _yes, yes, this was exactly it_.

“The vamps, you couldn’t get to her because of the vamps, they had you up against the wall just like this, didn’t they?”

A weird, helpless noise came from your throat. You felt the hot slips now, from your eyes to your top lip. You couldn’t meet Dean’s eyes. You saw the glow of the map table illuminate the ridges of your new books, and you saw the two empty beer bottles on the other side of the room by the bookshelf, and you saw the way your backpack laid limp and open, ready to be filled again. But not… not Dean.

“Y/N, look at me _. Look at me_.”

“Dean, I—“

“Do you trust me?”

You clenched your jaw. How dare he pull that on you… use… manipulation to move you. But the truth was that you did. You did trust Dean. And so, despite the obvious pain, despite the fact that you wanted to avoid all of this, the vampires, the emotions that welled inside you that weren’t just related to that event, but the ones relating to the strong, capable man standing in front of you, you looked at Dean.

His eyes were kind, but they looked like fire, like they were hot to touch. But behind them, in the slashes of light around his irises, there was something deep, and… soft.

“Tell me something,” he said and closed the space between your bodies. “Try to move me. Just try.”

And you did try, but you knew why he asked so you didn’t really try and quickly gave up.

“No, you can’t. And what else? What is the strength of the average blood-sucking asshole?”

“F-five times that of humans.”

“That’s right. Vamps are at least five times as strong as us. And what are they really, really good at doing to get their fix?”

You swallowed hard and it hurt.

“M-manipulation.”

“Yeah. That’s right, Y/N. They’re strong and they’re really, really good at manipulation. And me, the great, _righteous_ man with the pressure of the whole goddamn world on his shoulders,” he said, mockingly, “have you seen me manipulated? Have you seen me out-fought? Beaten and thrown to the ground? Have you seen my friends die when I was around? Have you seen me fuck up, Y/N?”

You looked into his eyes. He was angry, but the anger wasn’t at you. The anger was inside of Dean and you felt it breaking with the same strength as he held you to the wall.

                “Dean…”

                “Y/N…” he started, but something inside him immediately lost its edge and he dropped his head. He moved back just far enough so that you could free yourself. But when your arms fell to your sides, you immediately replaced them on Dean’s hips and nodded forward to touch both of your foreheads together.

                You felt his body shake with unsteady breath.

                “Dean…”

                “You are human, Y/N. You are human like me, alright?, “he said, keeping his gaze on the floor. “We can’t… we can’t change that. We’re…” he let out a shaky exhale, “we’re always going to fuck up. Things are always going to be our fault. We’re never gonna be as shiny as a frickin’ silver spoon. We’re flawed. We’re… we’re weak, physically weaker than all of them, but we’re smarter. And that’s we can gank ‘em, Y/N. You did everything you could and that is enough. You did everything you could and you know that. So don’t let them, even after their dead, even after it’s all behind you… don’t let them still manipulate you, because you know, you know if that vamp had me up against the wall like this I’d be in the same shoes you are. I’d be beating myself to shit wondering what I did wrong. Because hell—“

                “You do,” you said. “You do beat yourself up. Like you said, you, you _drink_ , I _run_.” Your breath started to return as you stood there, each holding each other strong and steady.  You didn’t want to sacrifice your hands on Dean to wipe away the tears so you tried not to think about how puffy your eyes were and how stained your cheeks would be. And as your inhales evened out, you realized just how much Dean was actually… _hurting_. You could see his brows twisted in a knot and his eyes press together. You realized that what he just _did_ , what he was telling you… and the position he was taking… he was _talking_ about it. He was reliving something very close to… _hell_ … _his_ hell, and that talking about it _hurt_ him, a lot. And he just did it… for… for… _you_.

“Dean.”

                He didn’t meet your eyes. He just shook his head, catching a few strands of hair trapped between your foreheads as he did.

                You gave a light chuckle to yourself, trying to piece the words together in your mind.

                “I’m… I’m not righteous or anything. I’m—hell, I’m not much of anything, so I’m not sure what it actually means or if it means anything, but…” you paused, doubting yourself. “I forgive you.”

                If the bunker was peacefully silent before, it was excruciatingly silent now. Both of you were frozen, hands on hips, your back to the wall, foreheads together, eyes lingering somewhere south on each other’s bodies just because of your position…  and everything was still.

                It felt like the moment wouldn’t end, like you would be there until Sam came home, or the bunker crumbled into eternity, or the devil himself came up to get both of you— until Dean pulled his head away and looked at you.

                There was a rush. It felt kind of like a waterfall, but not like a consistent flow of water. It was more like a floodgate, a pinpoint, a moment in time when you felt like you were being given so much of something that you’d never expected to be given, and it all came from the way he looked at you.

                There were no words, nothing spoken. But you felt his thumbs press into the space right below your hipbones, that slight press that means _I want a grip_ , and then the back of your head hit the wall and his lips were on yours.

                You don’t remember when your hands went from his hips to his hair, or that you instinctively pressed your lower body into his when he kissed you. You don’t remember the slow, gradual increase in your breathing, or the way he timed his moves just so he could feel your reaction before moving in again. You don’t remember when he started to kiss somewhere else, your neck maybe? Or the way his leg ended up wedged between yours sometime before his strong grip found your thighs and your heels found the small of his lower back, right up against the wall. You don’t remember the silence of the bunker being filled with sighs and heavy breaths and sounds that conveyed want. You don’t remember exactly how it started or quite where it ended. But you remember, quite precisely, how it all felt. And it felt quite like forgiveness.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments? :) I'm relatively new to this and could use a hit of dopamine. :) Thank you!  
> My Tumblr is alloftheorangejuice, the same as my AO3.


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